For Dressing
Two tablespoonfuls of Oil.
Half a tablespoonful of Vinegar.
Half a tablespoonful of Chilli Vinegar.
Half a tablespoonful of Tarragon Vinegar.
Half a teaspoonful of made Mustard.
A late-Victorian flavoured vinaigrette, given as proportions only — the assembly is left to the cook. It is intended for cold fish and fish salads, which explains its sharpness.
- The proportions are unusually acidTwo tablespoons oil against a total of one and a half tablespoons vinegar is close to 1.3:1, where a modern vinaigrette runs 3:1 or 4:1. That bite is deliberate for oily cold fish, but if you are dressing leaves, double the oil.
- "Made mustard"This means prepared mustard from the jar, not dry mustard powder — in an English book of this date, almost certainly English mustard. Dijon works and is milder; if you only have powder, use a scant quarter teaspoon slaked with a little water first.
- The oil"Oil" in high-class cookery of the period meant olive oil, generally milder in character than the assertive peppery oils sold now. A light olive oil or a neutral oil gives a result closer to the intention.
- Chilli vinegarVinegar steeped with dried red chillies, once a standard cruet item. Substitute a teaspoon of plain wine vinegar plus a few drops of hot sauce, or steep two dried chillies in vinegar for a week.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and easily made by covering a few tarragon sprigs with white wine vinegar for a fortnight. Do not swap in dried tarragon and plain vinegar; the flavour is thin and grassy.
- Seasoning is missingNo salt or pepper is specified, which the cook was presumably expected to supply. Add salt to taste and a good deal of white pepper — the mustard alone will not carry it.
- MethodWhisk the mustard with the three vinegars first, then beat in the oil in a thin stream so it holds together. Whisked again just before serving, it will stay combined long enough to reach the table.
- YieldAbout three and a half tablespoons — enough for a plate of cold salmon or turbot for two to three, or a small salad. Scale up freely; the ratio holds.
Dressings of this kind belong to the era when a well-stocked English kitchen kept a shelf of flavoured vinegars — chilli, tarragon, garlic, elder, cucumber — each made at home by steeping and strained into cruet bottles. The recipe's structure is what the Victorians and Edwardians called French dressing: oil, vinegar and mustard beaten together, as against the egg-thickened mayonnaise served with the same cold fish on grander occasions. Sharp, herb-scented dressings of this type were a common accompaniment to cold boiled salmon, turbot and lobster salad at a period when a large fish was poached whole, served hot at one meal and dressed cold at the next. The reliance on tarragon reflects the French influence on English high-class cookery in the wake of Soyer and Francatelli, tarragon being one of the herbs most closely associated with professional French kitchens.